Finding a Way to Freedom
by tamorafans
Summary: The growing story of a girls struggles to be free of an overbearing motherA story that my whole neopets guild is writing together!-Some of the chapters aren't very long, but they're great anyway!:D
1. Chapter 1

Leoma of Palouse (a fief near the Scanran border), Lia to all who knew her, threw herself onto the golden meadow. Roughly a half mile away, she saw the stone walls of her manor-house, and the miniscule village surrounding it. How she wished she could leave this place, no matter how dear it was to her!   
  
Lia had never left her fief in her fourteen years, mostly because of what had happened to her older brother when she was two. Klaythe had been only fifteen, when he was struck down a Gifted bandit. Since then, Mother had refused to let Lia go to the City of the Gods, to be trained as a mage.   
  
Lia brushed her hair, the color of gold, out of her face, and picked out with her steely gray eyes a large cloud that seemed to be coming toward her. She ran home, thinking to herself, 'I must do something TODAY. No more putting it off. I have to take action, and make something of myself.'   
  
Lia stopped and looked around..."But," she said aloud, "If I set foot inside, Mother will chain me down and teach me to be a 'lady', as if there was any use in that..." She mimicked her mother's voice, "You know, Lia, I've seen better embriodery from you, yes, much better. Do you remember when you used to be content with just sitting for hours and stitching?...Ooh, but now, you're so brown and course, not at all delicate, and how can you stand being outside in this heat?" She muttered to herself, "I vow to this day that I will NEVER do embriodery AGAIN! I swear it by the Goddess, nothing will stop me from being a mage!"  
  
She looked around for something to focus her energy on, a clump of weeds met her eyes. She sat, tailor style in the soft grass and closed her eyes. Her browns knit together as she concentrated. Softly she started the spell for transformation. Her midnight blue Gift streamed outwards from her open palms. The dark blue filled the plants and set them sparkling and shimming from green to blue. Little by little the plant leaves mutated together and formed a glowing orb of energy. Slowly the orb began to take on shape.   
  
When Lia finally opened her eyes a large butterfly fluttered over and landed on her knee. She picked it up with her hand and held it up to her face. "You know, little one, I wish I were you." She wrinkled her nose as the butterfly settled on it. "You have more freedom than I ever will." She smilied, guessing what she must look like, with a large butterfly spreading its wings on the tip of her nose.   
  
She sighed, "Well, now that I have company, I think I'll take a nap." She leaned back onto sweet fresh grass and closed her eyes. "Only for a time of course, one can't lose a day to complete leisure and happiness, I must keep some for tomorrow, and the next day too." She drifted off into sleep as the clouds drifted slowly overhead. 


	2. Chapter 2

Goosebumps traveled up Lia's skin quickly, and a chill wind blew on her from the North. She sat up, alarmed, and stared at her home. She could hear war cries, and saw torches bobbing like apples in a bucket of water. Lia noticed that night had fallen; stars winked at her from the ebony sky.   
  
She pulled her eyes away from the heavens, and gazed back at her house. She could hear only a bit of what was going on, and could see even less. Lia reached for her Gift inside, and gently pulled it toward her throat, past her mouth and nose, to her eyes. She focused on here house, and with her enhanced sight, saw with her own eyes what she had first suspected - Scanran raiders, and spidrens!   
  
Lia picked up her lightweight skirts, and bit back the scream on the tip of her tongue - yelling would do her no good, only draw attention to her! Returning the Gift she had used to see the raiders to her reserve, she ran as fast as she could across the field, ignoring the stinging wind and blades of grass that whipped her heels.  
  
She was about to dash up a knoll to her home when she asked herself,   
  
"What can I do?" She couldn't do anything like Alanna the Lioness did on a daily basis, for she hadn't been trained well enough. She was a small girl, to small to don armor and fight with the men.   
  
Fury at her helplessness started at her toes, and rose throughout Lia's whole being. She trembled with anger; she didn't even notice that her Gift in it's entirety was emanating from her. Only when she stopped trembling and managed to calm down but a bit, did she notice that the air around her, in ten feet in all directions, was a midnight blue, glowing sphere. Presently, Lia knew that she could indeed do something to stop the raiders.   
  
Summoning the light to her hand, she rolled it into a smaller, denser ball of magic than she had ever seen before - it's very weight made Lia want to collapse. As soon as she had gathered all of the magic around her, the fury at the raiders returned, and she hurled the ball into the fray.  
  
Dark flames engulfed the raiders and the spidrens; the air shimmered with heat and power. Suddenly, they were all gone. The soldiers from Palouse stood idly on the grounds, untouched by the flames, open mouthed. Lia stood on the knoll, amazed that she had simply vaporized what must have been at least fifty men. For at least ten minutes, everyone stood in a void, of sorts, without moving, all staring at Lia in shock.  
  
Lia's mother broke the spell.  
  
"By the Goddess, Lia, what HAVE YOU DONE?" A vein throbbed in her mother's face, which was turning a spectacular shade of purple.   
  
"Well, come in now!" Lia hung her head dejectedly, as her mother led her into the small castle, beginning yet another lecture on how terrible magic was.  
  
But as she marched inside, the villagers all sprang into spontaneous applause and cheers for her. 


	3. Chapter 3

After wiping off a chair she sank slowly down, keeping her eyes on her mother. As she settled into her chair her mother burst out angrily with phrases like, "WHAT could have POSSESED YOU to do that?!" and "Do you realize you could have been KILLED?!" Lia let her eyes glaze over as she began to think over other things away from the yelling, purple-faced woman in front of her.  
  
"Wait, what did you say?" Lia said, springing back into consciousness. Something her mother had said caught her attention.   
  
"What do you mean, 'what did I say?' Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying?! Lia, how many times have I told you, you can't just ignore what you've done wrong, you can-"  
  
"-Only strive to correct it. I KNOW mom, you've told me this for years, anything that I've slipped up on, any mistake in appearance, any loose thread in that stupid empriodery, anyone I've been pert to, it has only been 'Lia, you need to stop messing around,' 'Lia, you need to do that better, 'Lia, you need to be perfect!' What is it with you? Why do I have to be better than anyone else, why do I have to try and be something that I'm not? Is it because you think I'll never live up to my potential, or is it because I just won't please YOU?"  
  
At this Lia stormed off, not giving her mother a chance to yell back at her, or to even think of something to yell. Lia knew she'd be in trouble for that later, but she didn't care. She started thinking of plans in her head. 'Maybe,' she thought, 'I should leave for Corus tonight, the new year of Page training starts soon. Or I could go to the Yamanis, they know women aren't weak. They even teach women who are princesses or commeners to use the glaive!'   
  
She slammed the door to her room, and gather up some thigns to start packing... 


	4. Chapter 4

Lia tried to lift the rucksack she was using, but couldn't see how she would get past the gates with this load. She threw everything onto the floor of her chamber (who cared if she left it messy? She wouldn't be coming back) and selected a few essential items - a loaf of bread, four apples, a package of venison, and a wedge of cheese, for food, her cloak and a spare outfit, and a length of rope - you never knew when it would come in handy. As an afterthought, she buried twenty gold nobles at the bottom of the pack. With that, she was off.  
  
Lia took the servants' stairwell to the back door of the manor, passed through the kitchen, and carefully shut the door, praying to the gods that it wouldn't slam and cause a ruckus. Fortunately, it didn't.  
  
The evening was an inky black, and the starlight twinkling through the trees lit Lia's way. She tried to stay on the main road leading south, which was fairly easy, since there was only one road out in the country. It was only when the sun began to rise that Lia realized she must have been walking for at least five hours! Along with this realization, a wave of sleepiness overcame her. Lia hadn't considered the problem of where she would sleep. She tried to remember what runaways in her books had done, to no avail. 'I suppose I'll just have to rest off the road a bit, and hope last nights' bandits didn't come this way,' she thought to herself. With that, she walked for five minutes into the light woods, found a clearing and let herself drop on the bare ground, pausing for but a moment to wish she'd brought a blanket with her.  
  
It was about midday when Lia woke up from her nap, feeling surprisingly rested. She searched down firewood, and struck up a flame. With that, she roasted enough venison to fill her on a spit she made from wood. After her immensely satisfying meal, Lia kicked the ashes from the fire around with her foot, and hurled the charred wood into the trees - no need to let the men her mother would surely send out to look for her, know she had been here.   
  
s walk led Lia to a fork in the road. She could follow the Great Road East to Corus, or she could turn west, on a shorter road, and head for Port Legann, where ships would be sailing for Yaman. Both were a half day's walk from her turning point.   
  
What was Lia to do?  
  
Of course in the end Lia headed to the west, and already the smell of sea salt clung in the air. A new atmosphere just might do her body some good. Hiding away on a ship or working for the right to be onboard would be challenging enough. Even if she did have twenty or so gold nobles that she surely could use to pay for passage, but where was the adventure in that? The trees slowly started to thin in the early morning, and just about mid afternoon she stopped on the boarder of Port Legann to make camp. No sense in paying to sleep at an Inn when you can sleep outside for free. Mumbling to herself about how "I might need those gold nobles in the end anyways, and they wont be any good if I spend them for just one nights worth of comfort." 7   
  
She laid down her rucksack quietly, behind a clump of bushes. 'No sense in asking for unwanted company.' she thought to herself. 'In any case, no company thats unwanted.' She looked back over Legann. The colors that were once bright in the sun were muted softly in the dim glow of sunset. She lay down, sheilding her presence with her gift. Her head resting on soft grass, she looked up into the heavens comfortably, the stars were bright. She spotted the Goddess and the Cat at her feet. She had heard stories about these constilations, and she hoped that someday she could here the truth from one of her two idols, Alanna the Lioness.   
  
From what she had heard, Alanna of Pirates Swoop had a quick temper and was short, while Keladry of Midelan had almost no temper and was 'the size of a giant' as her brother had told her when she was little. She thought of Klaythe, suddenly blinking tears away from her eyes. She could barely even pull up an image of his face without crying anymore... 


	5. Chapter 5

'Stop it, Lia!' she chided herself, without taking her eyes off of the sky. 'You're out in the real world, now, and sobbing will do you no good!'  
  
Lia closed her eyes, adjusted the rucksack to make a pillow for her, and drifted into sleep.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"This should work, Numair. So why are you so hesitant?" Keladry of Mindelan demanded, her light brown hair, cropped short, swaying in the chill breeze. The mage Numair Salmalin and the knight stood together in the great hall, which the Lioness had forced everyone to clear out of, as a special favor for Kel.   
  
"Well," replied Numair nervously, his face slightly pale, "it's difficult enough to push a Gifted person into a dream, and you don't even have the Sight."   
  
"This is something I must do, though." Kel had spent the last two years free of dreams, now that she had completed the quest that the Chamber of the Ordeal had given her. Now, of course, she had received a dream, but it was different. For this dream had come from inside herself. Kel couldn't say how she knew she had to do this, but she did know.  
  
"It's perilous," said Numair, his last attempt to dissuade Kel from this ludicrous idea.   
  
"That's fine. The girl is asleep now, put me into her dream. Quick!" With that, a black flame sprouted from Numair's hand, and engulfed Kel.  
  
Kel was hurtling through space, and time seemed to have frozen. She flew at amazing speed over towns, forests, and plains. Soon, she recognized Port Legann, as if she was looking down on a spectacular map. Kel stifled a shriek, as she dropped into the town. She narrowly avoided spires and rooftops, and was about to land on top of a young, fair haired girl, who looked to be in her early teens. Kel realized that this must have been the Leoma of Palouse she'd heard of in her dream - the girl who would rise to become a great woman warrior-mage in the Yamani Isles.   
  
Kel kept falling as she descended toward Leoma's sleeping body. She fell right through Leoma's forehead. Then, all was dark. But Kel was conscious, so she reasoned that she must be inside Lia's mind. In an instant, the world twisted around her, and Kel was watching Leoma dash through a dark tunnel, as a spidren chased her.  
  
"Don't worry about interfering with the dream, Kel," Numair had told her before sending her into Leoma's mind. "Unless, of course, a god is in the dream. You wouldn't want to interrupt!" 'Back to the present,' Kel told herself.  
  
"Leoma," Kel intoned, trying to sound magical, or something. Anything to get her attention.  
  
"It's Lia," replied the girl, as she turned and administered an upper cut to the spidren that made Kel wince. "What is it?"  
  
"I'm Keladry of Mindelan. It's nice to meet you, Lia." The two shook hands, and Kel continued, "I'm here to tell you something. I had a dream a few nights ago-"  
  
"Like the one I'm having now?"  
  
"Yes. I had a dream, in which I knew that you were destined for great things," replied Kel, not at all bothered that Lia had interrupted. "However, to achieve those things, you MUST meet a certain lady. She will think it strange if you act like you know her, so pretend you met her by chance. Her name is Lady Haname. She's Yamani, and up until a few days ago, she lived at court. However, she's returning to her home for some time, and she can help you."  
  
Lia nodded, soaking all that Kel had said in. "How can she help me?"  
  
"I wish I could tell you, Lia. But I don't know. Just trust me. And don't excuse this as just a dream. It's not," explained Kel. "I'm going to wake you up now, so you're sure not to forget what I've just said. Find Lady Haname!" With that, Kel stepped up to Lia, and shook her gently.  
  
***  
  
Lia awakened with a start, Lady Keladry's words still in her mind. 'Find Lady Haname....'  
  
~~~~~~~  
  
Now that she was awake, Lia couldn't believe she hadn't asked Lady Keladry more questions. Where was Lady Haname? I don't even know hat she looks like, Lia thought frustratedly. How am I supposed to find her?   
  
Suddenly there were hoofbeats in the distance. Galloping horses, Lia thought. And that could mean only one thing--her father's men had tracked her. Quickly gathering her things, Lia hurried down the road, but the horsemen were faster, and nearly in sight.   
  
Lia looked to either side. Her only choice was to go into the woods. But she couldn't do that! In the woods it wsa dark, strange creatures lurked. Lia shivered. She could fight those things jusst fine in the light, but not in the dark woods...  
  
The soldiers were coming closer, she had to make a choice quickly...  
  
"Leoma of Palouse! Stop running and get back here this minute!"  
  
Too late. The men had cought her. Lia got onto her horse without a fight, cursing her own carelessness. How had she allowed herself to get caught?   
  
"Your mother is not going to be very happy with you, missy," One soldier sneered. "She was hopping mad when we left."   
  
"Well, she can be hopping mad when youget back--without ME!" Lia kicked her horse and galloped off into the distance, leaving the soldiers behind. Lia rode for an hour and a half without stopping, or even noticing that time was passing. She only slowed her horse to a trot when they had escaped Legann, and she was looking back on it from twenty miles away when it occurred to her that the men wouldn't have followed her this far. It still wasn't safe to return to the port, so Lia turned the mare she had stolen - who had turned out to be one she knew, Blue - and trotted to a hill, where she would have fortification, should raiders attack her, but with a nearby meadow for Blue to graze in. And, she could still see Port Legann from where she stood.   
  
It was about noon, when Lia recognized that she was hungry. She unwrapped a last bit of cheese and bread from her rucksack, and ate. Only after she had fulfilled her hunger did she realize that she had no weapon but her Gift, which wasn't suitable for hunting for food. She gazed at the near-empty rucksack, with barely enough food for a day. She could stay out here for the night, and go back to Legann the next afternoon, and find Lady Haname. Although Lia wasn't especially stealthy, she could purchase a priest's robe, which covered the face, and go about the streets unnoticed until she found Lady Haname.  
  
Yes, that was what she would do. 


End file.
